The festival business: Leagues O’Toole looks at the state of the Irish festival business as another “difficult” summer season gets under way.

The Middle East: ahead of their Dublin show tomorrow night, Jordan Ireland from ace Aussie act (and longtime OTR faves) The Middle East talks armies, online and the perils of whistling with Tony Clayton-Lea.

Plus: reviews of music releases from Christine Tobin (CD of the Week for “Tapestry Unravelled”), Robyn, Wild Nothing, Baths, “Horse Meat Disco II”, Max Richter, Laurie Anderson, Sweet Jane, Chris Singleton & the Distractions, Micah P Hinson and others, and new movies rated and slated including Get Him to the Greek, The Collector, Whatever Works and When In Rome.

All this and more in The Ticket, in print, online and the best of The Ticket on the app.

The OTR plugs service is now open for business. Please feel free to plug and recommend stuff away to your heart’s content, but remember some simple rules. Declare an interest where one should be declared. Plugs are accepted on the whim of OTR and may be edited for length/clarity/common sense. Plugs which mention a commercial sponsor are really ads and will probably not be published in this slot. Plugs which plug the same stuff every week will also be deleted – if people ain’t interested by now, you should really get the message. Stevie Wonder rules OK.